


Bending without Breaking

by Magi_Silverwolf



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dream Sharing, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Manipulation of a Child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 12:53:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11898153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magi_Silverwolf/pseuds/Magi_Silverwolf
Summary: The plan should have worked--and in a different world, it had. No one noticed and if they did, no one questioned it. But Harry had the friendship of two people every night in his dreams, and thus he dared to ask for help, because he just had to know if they were real.All the plans Dumbledore had made crumbled in an instant.





	Bending without Breaking

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the original canon nor am I making any profit from writing this piece. All works are accredited to their original authors, performers, and producers while this piece is mine. No copyright infringement is intended. I acknowledge that all views and opinions expressed herein are merely my interpretations of the characters and situations found within the original canon and may not reflect the views and opinions of the original author(s), producer(s), and/or other people.  
> Warnings: This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers.

-= LP =-

Bending without Breaking

-= LP =-

_Now paranoia's setting in and I'm falling from these stars again_

_While every part of me screams, "hold on"_  
Cause if you can't learn to bend then you break  
Oh my God, how long does it take?  
 – Mikky Ekko, “Watch Me Rise”

-= LP =-

 

Harry’s best relationships didn’t exist.

 

Every night, he would dream them into being anew.

 

Every night, he would experience the perfection which was friendship and caring. Luna would pull him into the craziest adventures, chasing creatures which could only exist in that dream. Meanwhile, Neville would follow them, determined to keep them safe. Those were the good days—er, nights.

 

There were others that weren’t so nice. On those nights, they would find some impossibly comfy spot and lay curled around each other like Mrs. Figg’s cats. In hushed voices, they would whisper secrets to each other—how Neville loved his parents but sometimes thought that maybe it would have been better if they had died, and how Harry didn’t understand what he had done that meant that the Dursleys couldn’t love him. When Luna had fallen into their dreamscape the night that her mother died, they had held her tight as she wept and her emotions made the sky roll with storm clouds.

 

They were his best friends.

 

And the fact that they weren’t real was killing him.

 

Possibly _literally_.

 

How long can someone straddle the line between reality and fantasy before they had to choose a side?

 

Just when he thought his world could not get any stranger, any more insane, he started receiving letters. They were written on _actual parchment_ and Harry was having trouble with the idea of just how many poor animals were dying just so someone could prank him into trying to go to a school for magic. He may have joked about how Dudley looked like a pig but it wasn’t because he had anything against pigs. The physical impossibility of getting a dozen full-sized letters into a dozen eggs made it clear that Harry had finally lost it completely.

 

That he hesitated to tell his dream-friends about the craziness because he didn’t want them to think poorly of him was just rubbing it in at this point. It was completely and utterly _insane_ , as in lock him up in the asylum the Dursleys were always threatening him with and throw away the key. An orphanage would be too much of a risk at this point. Crazy people were dangerous people.

 

Seeing Diagon Alley for the first time made him tremble inside where no one could see. It took only a moment to slip away from Hagrid at the bookstore—and barely any effort to then find the section on magical creatures who had familiar names. He recognize the names of plants as well—Neville did occasionally help sculpt their adventures beyond keeping them safe from marauding dream-creatures. He didn’t want to ask—didn’t dare—but how could he leave without knowing for sure?

 

Neville would ask.

 

Luna would, too.

 

He really couldn’t do any less and still be worthy of their friendship.

 

“Excuse me?” Harry asked the teenager stocking shelves. “Are there any books on—It’s stupid, I know—but are there any books about sharing dreams with other people?”

 

“You’re muggleborn, aren’t you?” the stocker asked without really looking at him. Harry was more than a little happy with that reaction. The whole incident in the pub still made his stomach roll uncomfortably. Crowds were never going to be easy for him to deal with, not after so many years of dealing with Dudley’s gang and their habit of Harry Hunting.

 

“I don’t think that is technically correct, sir, but I was raised by muggles. Are—are there books? On that? Like, they’re real, right? They really exist?”

 

“Listen, I’m not really—” The teen cut himself off after he finally bothered to look at Harry. His mouth dropped open for a moment before he snapped it close. “You’re Harry Potter.” He looked like he was torn between nausea and elation. Then a growing expression of anger filled his face as his gaze moved up and down the length of Harry’s form. “You were raised by muggles? They’re the ones that dressed you like this? Is that—”

 

A hand darted towards his neck. Harry was already ducking away and retreated before he could process what the teenager had been intending to do—and more importantly, what he _hadn’t been_. He felt his face heat with a blush as he straightened back to a normal stance.  He couldn’t get his shoulders to unhunch and he definitely didn’t dare to meet the eyes he could still feel on him. Not even a full day in the magical world and already he had messed up. The only way that this day could get any worse was if the dreams really did turn out to not be real.

 

“McGonagall or Flitwick?” The teen’s sudden question startled Harry into looking at him again. His face had been cleared of any emotion, but his _eyes_ seemed to burn with rage. Harry felt the shiver tingle its way up his spine as a decade of instincts screamed _danger_ at him. “Sprout would have already spotted this and Snape was planning on attending a convention in Sweden this summer. That leaves McGonagall or Flitwick as your escort.”

 

“Hagrid brought me.” Harry’s answer did not seem to impress the teen. He pulled out what had to be a normal wand, not one hidden in an umbrella. A flick of it had the box of  books he was stocking closing itself and then he was moving quickly away towards the back of the story. As he passed Harry, he pinched a fold of Harry’s shirt to tug him along in his wake. They ran into a round-faced man with dark red hair and square glasses perched on his nose. The man raised an eyebrow at the stocker.

 

“He needs help with his introduction, sir. Hogwarts sent Hagrid.”

 

“They did, did they?” the man said, and Harry wasn’t certain if that was really meant to be a question. Harry half-liked Hagrid, even if he seemed to have a temper to rival Uncle Vernon’s and couldn’t really explain, well, _anything_. Yet the way these two were reacting, it was clear that Hagrid should not have been the person to bring him to do his school shopping. “You’re taking him to the Flints then?”

 

“Of course, sir.”

 

“Be quick about it, lad. I’ll distract his minder but you know who would have sent him and what that means for how long I’ll be success. Get about it.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

Then they were out the back of the store into a little quad between the buildings. Harry looked around, just as amazed as he was walking down Diagon Alley to the bank. The stocker kept a hand on him as he pulled him into a tiny gap in the buildings to a busy courtyard. Children were playing raucous games just like they did back in Little Whinging, but every so often there were bursts of sparks or colors or bubbles. No one was scolding them for the blatant displays of magic; no yells about how unnatural it was. Harry’s throat felt like something was stuck in it.

 

“Where are we?”

 

“Steward’s Junction—it’s the residential section of the Alleys. We’re going to Professon Alley, but we have to cut through Antagon, and I’m going to point out the Center. If something comes up while we’re at the Flints or if we can’t get there, go there and tell them that Avery sent you on Blotts’ authority. They’ll help you—it’s their job. They’ll keep you safe.”

 

“All this because I asked about meeting someone in dreams?”

 

“What? No—everyone meets their soulmate in their dreams. This is because you clearly need help.”

 

“Luna and Neville are my soulmates?”

 

“You have two? Don’t answer that! It was a stupid question. We’re almost there.”

 

“Almost where?”

 

“The best hiding place in all Britannia,” Avery answered before pushing open the door to a shop that had jewelry in the display window. Harry followed, knowing that everything had just changed.

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was written for a challenge in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments) on the FFN forum.  
> The Challenge Information:  
> House: Gryffindor  
> Claimed Pairing: Lunar Heroes (Neville Longbottom/Luna Lovegood/Harry Potter)  
> Day 0x: Sharing Dreams  
> Extra Prompt[s]: n/a  
> Word Count: 1322


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